writing : blog
Just a quick Mark Your Calendar note – more details to follow. The only 37days retreat in 2008 will be held at the beautiful Bend of Ivy Lodge near Asheville, NC, on September 26-28, 2008. If you’d like to be among the first to receive more information about the retreat as it is finalized in the next few weeks, please…
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I got an email from my friend Gay today. Did she know–all the way out there on the left coast–that I was missing Billy? How on earth could she know that? And yet she did, and sent a link to this wonderful video of The Man Himself. And after you’ve gotten your Billy fix there, talking about poetry, looking right…
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Sent by a reader named Ann Moore, taken on a cozy corner of Culebra, Puerto Rico, on a trip there with students last spring. I don’t know about you, but I think Island Woman is on to something….
We fight for men and women whose poetry is not yet written. –Robert Gould Shaw, abolitionist In 2008, I will be a better advocate for those who need—and want—my advocacy. Long ago on a faraway planet, I once worked in an organization where I sat through a management meeting every Monday. Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell no longer scares me….
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There is no virtue in being uncritical nor is it a habit to which the young are given. But criticism is only the burying beetle that gets rid of what is dead, and, since the world lives by creative and constructive forces, and not by negation and destruction, it is better to grow up in the company of prophets than…
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Dear friends, Imagine that you’re in a bookstore. You’re surrounded by thousands of books. You’ve wandered to the self-help or inspiration section because, frankly, you need some self-help like only Americans can provide it and you need some inspiration because the kids are always yelling in the backseat and you’re washing the same ergonomic carrot peeler a thousand times and…
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Life’s meaning emerges from conversation in community with people you love. – Dave Pollard I will have real conversations in 2008, fierce conversations driven by curiosity, by caring, by connection, in community, through love. “I found myself unwilling to waste time. I cut right through the bullshit to the real conversation,” MaryAnne said yesterday, recalling the last few weeks when…
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Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart. -Martha Graham In 2008, I will come to be danced. I had expected to write “D is for direction.” But an email from my friend, Nancy MacDonald, a few days ago changed my mind. She sent me this poem: We have come to be danced We have…
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One regret dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on my deathbed, is that I did not kiss you enough. -Hafiz In 2008, I will be satisfied. I will have enough and I will be enough. I will spend my time not getting more, but giving more, kissing the dear world more, naming what…
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Sometimes we get the message we need. Reading zena musings this morning, I found Carla’s link to this: What would love do? It was written for me. And, perhaps, for you? [perhaps a knitted heart is the perfect image for this message, considering the ways in which knitting can ravel, or not. Image from here]
Patti Digh is the author of six books, including bestsellers Life is a Verb and Creative is a Verb. She travels the world teaching others about mindfulness: to live fully, love well, let go deeply, and make a difference. Patti's comments have appeared on PBS and in The New York Times, Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, the London Financial Times, and many other international publications. She writes a thank you note every morning.
